# Fame.am profile — machine-readable export
# Canonical URL: https://fame.am/person/john-cage
# Generated: 2026-09-01T11:12:10.304Z

schema: https://schema.org/Person
url: "https://fame.am/person/john-cage"
name: "John Cage"
slug: "john-cage"
description: "He wrote a four-and-a-half-minute piece where the performers play nothing — and it became one of the most argued-over works in music history. Cage dismantled the idea that composition meant filling silence, using coin tosses and ancient Chinese texts to let chance build the score."
tagline: "American avant-garde composer (1912-1992)"
image: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Opdracht_GPD_componist_John_Cage_%2C_kop%2C_Bestanddeelnr_934-2728.jpg?width=1200"
gender: "male"
country:
  name: "United States"
  isoCode: "US"
category:
  name: "Musicians"
  slug: "musicians"
profileType:
  name: "Singer / Musician"
  slug: "singer"
  entityType: "https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q177220"
birthDate: "1912-09-05"
deathDate: "1992-08-12"
livingStatus: "DECEASED"
scores:
  popularity:           60
  momentum:             0.3155775013103087
  historical:           25.34622
  currentAttention:     0
  sourceConfidence:     75
  profileCompleteness:  85
  trendDirection:       "FALLING"
ranks:
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  country:  null
  category: null
tags:
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    slug: "musicians"
  - name: "Singer / Musician"
    slug: "singer-musician"
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    slug: "classical"
  - name: "Literature"
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  - name: "Philosophy"
    slug: "philosophy"
  - name: "Painting"
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  - name: "Art"
    slug: "art"
platforms:
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    handle:    "nm0128509"
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    url:       "https://johncage.org"
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    url:       "https://open.spotify.com/artist/1Z3fF5lZdCM0ZHugkGoH8s"
    handle:    "1Z3fF5lZdCM0ZHugkGoH8s"
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    title: "Wikipedia"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Wikidata"
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    title: "John Cage"
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    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "John Cage"
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    title: "John Cage"
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    title: "John Cage"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "John Cage"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://ga.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage"
    title: "John Cage"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "John Cage"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Wikiquote"
    type:  "WEBSITE"
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    title: "Wikiquote"
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# bio (long form, separated for readability)
bio: |
  John Milton Cage Jr. studied under Arnold Schoenberg in the mid-1930s, but his real turn came through Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism in the late 1940s, which led him to aleatoric music — composition by chance. Starting in 1951, he used the I Ching as his standard tool, calling music "a purposeless play" and "an affirmation of life." In 1952 he premiered 4′33″, a piece in which musicians stay silent and the audience hears only ambient sound; it remains a flashpoint in arguments about what music is. He also pioneered the prepared piano, placing objects on the strings to warp the instrument's voice, writing Sonatas and Interludes and works for Merce Cunningham, his longtime partner and collaborator in modern dance. He died in 1992, having redrawn the borders of sound.